the pod bay door

.: Sticking with the teevee theme, I was on the ABC site and noticed that my favorite new sitcom, the brilliant Sons & Daughters, has a blog, Out on a Limb, written by the co-creator and star of the show, Fred Goss. Goss provides some background to the show, including information on his co-stars, the relationship and support of ABC, and what’s forthcoming; comments are encouraged, which gives us the opportunity to give direct feedback to Goss, which is, well, totally cool.

.: Check this: NBC has produced a set of spoofs of its “The More You Know” campaign, featuring cast members from The Office doing the PSA’s. Topics include jellybeans, Saltines, short people, and beer. You may need IE to view them, however, as I can’t get the videos to play in Firefox.

.: Teeveepedia is easily one of the funniest web sites I’ve ever seen. The writing is hilarious and brilliant, and using Wikipedia as its template was a stroke of genius, despite being the obvious thing to do. Dig down into the site and you will find small gems everywhere. I cannot remember laughing out loud so many times while reading through a web site ever. Descriptions of few of my favorite shows:

Homicide: Life on the Street

A sacred, holy narrative! None shall speak against it.

Homicide: Life on the Street aired in the mid-1990s. The apostate network NBC did blaspheme against it by scheduling it for Friday nights, instead of doing a 9 P.M. Law & Order/10 P.M. Homicide block on Wednesday nights. Nonetheless, it clung to life for an astonishing seven seasons, sustained for five of those years by sheer excellence, and in its lamentable sixth and seventh by the unholy presence of Jon Seda.

This brilliant series was never nominated for an Emmy for “best drama,” which proves conclusively that the Emmy Awards mean absolutely nothing.

Homicide was created by ex-journalist David Simon and Tom Fontana. It was also the birthplace of the ever-proliferating John Munch.

Equally hilarious are descriptions of so-called spinoffs, such as:

Star Trek: SVU was a short-lived spinoff of Star Trek centering on the Special Vulcan Unit, a team of elite Federation detectives who solved intergalactic crimes through the application of cold logic and the occasional quirk of their eyebrows. Despite the show’s titillating mind-meld sequences, it ultimately proved a ratings failure, partly because its examination of alien legal systems baffled viewers, and partly because a cast that spoke entirely in measured monotones and had sex only once every seven years put audiences to sleep.

Its fans nonetheless fondly remember the signature episode from the series’ brief run, “For a Handful of Chalk,” in which the cast spends the entire hour writing out the proof to a logical theorem on an immense blackboard to determine whether or not the ambassador from Belisarius V did indeed flarnok with his k’aamot.

The show’s executive producers were Dick Wolf and Majel Barrett Roddenberry.

I haven’t checked every entry yet, but the one that had me laughing out loud and in tears the most is the entry for 24. The description includes recaps for all five seasons. I can’t decide which one is funniest, but here’s Season Two:

Arab terrorists plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, and only Jack Bauer can stop them. Decapitating a pedophile to get properly warmed up, Jack tortures his way through L.A.’s Muslim communities (with a brief and embarrassing wrong turn into a Sikh neighborhood) in a desperate search for the bomb. After razing a mosque with his bare hands, Jack discovers that his hot new girlfriend’s crazy sister has ties to the terrorists, and dangles her upside-down over a shark tank until she surrenders the bomb’s location. With mere minutes to spare, Jack packs his obnoxious boss and the bomb onto a small plane and sends them cheerily into the Sonoran desert to their irradiated doom. Meanwhile, Kim is attacked by the abusive father of the child she’s babysitting, mows down a nun in a hit-and-run, gets briefly kidnapped by cannibal midgets, causes a plane crash, accidentally severs her boyfriend’s leg, and is nearly eaten by a cougar. She is saved when the cougar sees her in a tank top on a very cold evening, and has to go off and spend some time alone in the bushes. In the shocking final moments of the season, President David Palmer is nearly killed by an infection of gay germs after shaking hands with the naked lesbian terrorist.

I could go on, but I’m laughing too hard. Check out the list of dramas produced by HBO to see why I decided not to add the description of Deadwood to this post.

Teeveepedia is one of a number of parody sites created by The Vidiots.

.: A few days ago my dishwasher conked out. It is at least 14 years old, and probably not worth repairing (again.) So I went to Sears Home today, and purchased a new one. It is scheduled to be delivered and installed on Friday.

.: A few sites of interest:

• Web 2.0 Awards – while I am already tired of the phrase “Web 2.0“, it is here to stay, and serves to describe the evolution from the early, platform-based web to the current version, wherein the user creates content online, using web-based products rather than the desktop. Included in this are blogs, wikis, bookmarkings, mapping, RSS, web development and design, peer-to-peer networks, music, and much more. SOEmoz, a company in Seattle, created the awards:
  

  It seems clear that Web 2.0 has caught the attention of entrepreneurs and pundits alike, so we set out to see what the meme had to offer: first to collect, then to classify, and finally to calculate the best of the best. We surveyed over 300 sites and sorted them into more than 30 categories. Then, from the biggest categories we selected the top three projects and ranked them based on their usability, usefulness, social aspects, interface & design, and content quality.

  The short version of the awards is here. What’s great about this project is that you can check a site of interest, learn why it is what it is, and decide whether or not to pursue it yourself.

• Unnecessary Censorship – a weekly bit from the Jimmy Kimmel, this one highlighting the Super Bowl; very funny stuff.
• The 9-11 Truth Movement – an article from a recent Village Voice. Don’t know what to make of this. Conspiracy theorists eat this stuff up all the time. But who knows?
• How to Subscribe to TV Shows Using The Democracy Player, Bittorrent, and RSS
• This Starbucks commercial has been running in the States for some time, but hasn’t played in Canada. It is brilliant and side-splittingly funny.

.: A few photos from my Atlanta trip are available for viewing. I am unable to upload these from my hotel room for some reason, so am doing it from inside the ACS Exhibition area.

My presentation yesterday morning went well, with about 40 people in attendance. I was the sixth of eight speakers. I tried sleeping in the afternoon, then attended a couple of low-keyed receptions. This morning, after eating more junk food at the food court at CNN Center, I went through some of the exhibits, spoke to a few vendors, including an FBI Special Agent at the FBI Special Agent booth. I left to go to the Georgia Aquarium, which despite the build-up, wasn’t that impressive to me. I think my reaction was based on the lack of spectacular tropical fish, but also because the place was jammed with people, many pushing strollers. It was too hot, and often difficult to see any exhibits. Still, it was worth the visit. Tonight I’m meeting my cousin for dinner, then home tomorrow.

.: Yesterday I had to take three flights to get to Atlanta. I had booked on Air Canada, rather than the much-preferred Northwest, because I had missed an NW seat sale, and needed to book the cheapest flight available. My first flight was to Calgary from Edmonton on a Dash 8, a 35 minute flight. I arrived at the Edmonton Intl’ Airport with pre-printed boarding passes, and checked my luggage. I turned to go to through security to find a line of at least five to six hundred people waiting to be processed, the majority of which were parents with their children, seemingly off their collective ritalin prescriptions, waiting to board flights to Nice Warm Places during Canada’s version of spring break.

Patiently, I moved slowly through the line. My flight was scheduled to leave at 0800, and it was 0710. By 0800, I was at the front of the line. I walked through the security scanner, and it did not beep. However, the security officer with the scanner wand asked me to stand and spread ’em – I asked why, she said I was a “random search.” She took her time, asked for my belt, and checked it, seemingly one notch at a time. It was 0805, and I heard my name called on the PA system. I grabbed my stuff and ran to the gate and just made the flight. While in line for 45 minutes, I noticed Westjet personnel pulling some people out to move to the front of the line. These were passengers destined to miss their Westjet flights because they were not going to clear security in time. There were no Air Canada personnel to be seen showing similar concern for their passengers. I asked about this at the Calgary gate, and was given a terse response, something to the effect of, “we are too busy today, we have too many flights.” After the plane took off, we were informed that there was much fog on the ground in Calgary, and that the plane might be diverted to Cranbrook BC. This didn’t happen, but we landed in Calgary in dense fog nonetheless.

In Calgary, I boarded the next flight, which was scheduled to land in Toronto, home of the most non-functional airport in the history of this space-time continuum. I had 75 minutes in Toronto to switch terminals, clear US Customs and board another jet. But the flight didn’t leave on time, because the wings needed to be de-iced. So we left late, and I still held out hope that I would have time to switch planes. But with about 30 minutes left in the flight, changes to connecting flights were announced, including the one to Atlanta. My flight was scheduled to leave Toronto at 1700.

Calgary flight landed at 1625. At the gate, I was given a different boarding pass to a flight that left three hours later. One of the Air Canada attendants said there was no way I could make the 1700 flight – this is due to the aforementioned non-functionality of the Toronto airport. You see, at this useless airport, when you fly in domestic but leave international, you need to switch terminals. This requires boarding a shuttle that drives and drives and drives across tarmacs endless, to another terminal, where you then walk through a huge, empty, abandoned terminal and must retrieve your luggage, and clear US Customs. Long after my 1700 Atlanta flight left, I finally cleared US Customs, and spent yet another three hours of my life I will never have back in the airport I most detest. (This happened to me last October when I was returning from NYC.) As for Air Canada, the expression “customer service” is, now and always, an oxymoron when applied to this airline. Expect no sympathy or understanding from Air Canada employees, with rare exceptions. It’s not in their job descriptions.

After thumb-twiddling at the Toronto airport for three hours, I went to the assigned gate to catch my final flight of the day, and was told I had to take another shuttle to another building. I couldn’t believe it. However, the AC employee, Adele, was sweet, understanding, and sympathetic, which was a nice change from the usual AC aloofness and indifference. Maybe she was doped up or something. By this point, my day-long frustration had manifested itself into a knot in the middle of my back that was so tight, it hurt on my left side to take a deep breath.

Note to self: avoid Air Canada and the Toronto airport as much as possible, like any plague in history.

.: In Atlanta today, I wandered about the streets surrounding the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. It was cool and windy here today, and I saw many people walking with mitts or gloves on. I bought a ticket to the Georgia Aquarium for Monday afternoon. I browsed through the store at CNN Center, and ate fast food. I walked through the Georgia World Conference Center, where the ACS Meeting will be held, and where today, a dental conference was ending. While I was eating at a four-seat table in the food court at CNN, I noticed two beautiful young Georgia women with food trays looking at me, obviously needing seats, and I invited them to sit at the table. They were dental hygiene students attending the conference, Jennifer and Karey, and we chatted for a while. It was a great conversation, until I blew it. Talking about the perception of America as seen by the rest of the world, I said that perhaps this would improve when the government changed in 2008. Jennifer sighed, and said, with deep, heartfelt honesty, “I don’t know…I love our president.” While not dissing Bush directly, I felt deflated, and that I had not offended so much as disappointed her – I hope not. (I thought, you’re in the south, moron, they love Bush down here!) But we kept chatting, and they told me about the sacrifice their husbands were making so that they could attend school, and how they felt like second-class conference attendees because of how they were treated by some exhibitors. When it was time to leave, we shook hands and parted warmly.

When I returned to the same food court around 1700 hrs, I was surprised to find it filled with among others, at least two hundred people drinking beer from 9-inch-high plastic cups. The food court is adjacent to the Phillips Arena, and apparently this is a pre-event ritual for many sports fans. Tonight it was an Atlanta Hawks-Dallas Mavericks basketball game.

I was considering seeing a movie tonight, but was disappointed to learn that there are no movie theatres in downtown Atlanta. In the hotel room, the first four channels on the television are CNN, CNN HN, CNN FN, and CNN en Español. Well, duh.

.: I am flying to Atlanta tomorrow to participate in this by presenting this during this program. I’ve been to Atlanta once before, to attend the SLA Conference in June 1994, when it was scorchingly hot. Temperatures for this visit will be in the 10-15C range, much more tolerable.

Atlanta is home to CNN and Coca-Cola and other interesting things. My cousin Adam lives and works in Atlanta, and is a co-owner of the Sutra Lounge. I won’t see him until Monday, however, as he is in Las Vegas for the weekend. He did suggest that the Georgia Aquarium is way cool, so I might try to see it while I’m there.